It’s not often that you can pin down which question in a quiz is the hardest. Over the course of a few hours, the questions asked at the start of the quiz fade away from your short-term memory, being replaced by their more recent counterparts.

Not so on Tuesday night last, when I attended the weekly quiz night in Gilligan’s, Claremorris. Question 1 it was. The very first of what would turn out to be 104 questions. I doubt anyone in the room got it right. That said, the team whose answers we were marking did manage to get the first names right so perhaps I’m being quick to judge.

After that, things got considerably easier. The winning team’s final score of 92 points making this pretty clear. My team trailed in second, on 88.

The final quiz of 2011 took place in Gilligan’s, Claremorris, on Tuesday last and, fittingly, it was Christmas themed.

The picture round featured 12 “santas”, there was a round in which we had to name the carols which matched the cryptic clues and we had a round in which the questions were nothing to do with Christmas but the answers were homonyms of things that were. It was very well done.

I was on the same team for the second week in a row. That’s right, even though the tables are pulled from a hat, we three (kings) managed to end up together once again. Thankfully, while we hadn’t been anywhere near winning last week, this time we managed to take home the final prize of the year.

Here are the answers to the questions posed in yesterday’s last week’s Delightful obscurity post. I’m sorry these took so long to appear on the site. I’ve had a very busy last few days. Chief among those activites which kept me away from the site was the upgrade to Mrs tablequiz.net’s website, leavingcertenglish.net. Check it out if you feel like being educated!

Not long after Mike’s post on questions and how, knowingly or unknowingly, the question setter may ease them for the benefit of the crowd hit this site, I attended the weekly Tuesday quiz in Gilligan’s Bar, Claremorris.

This week’s quizmaster was Mick, my recent team-mate on a couple of successful outings. He produced a quiz to savour with questions coming from all angles and obscure locations. He opened up with a round featuring songs with numbers in the title. Let me tell you, not alone had I not heard of some of the songs involved, but, in two or three of them, I’d never heard of the artist either!

That set the tone. A couple of rounds were played out to a soundtrack of audible groans from the crowd but, after Bruges and this week’s discussion on difficulty, I found it very entertaining. Why do we quiz if not to be challenged?

My favourite was a round on Shakespeare. Yes, we all know “Forsooth I know not why I am so sad…” but do you know what play it’s from? And which character said it? It turned out that I did, although it was an educated guess.

My team finished second on 83, behind the winners’ 91. These weren’t out of 100 though. Several of the rounds had 11 questions, many of them had multi-part answers (worth a point each and a bonus awarded to any team who got all) and the picture round had 22. Truth be told, I don’t know what the potential full score was!

Here are the answers to the two quizzes worth of questions posed in Twofer won. Or should that be “two quiz’s worth”?

I’m on quiz master duty again on Friday evening. If you’re anywhere in the vicinity, please come on in to The Dalton Inn, Claremorris, for a quiz in aid of Claremorris Community Radio. Kick-off is scheduled for 8.30pm, tables of four are €40 and all are welcome!